It is instructive that the most powerful person in the world today is not the new tsar of Russia, the new emperor of China, nor the supreme ayatollah of Iran — each of them totalitarian rulers of large, aggressive, and historically autocratic states.
Nor is it the elected leader of the world’s most populous nation, India, a new democracy that not long ago was a socialist state dominated by one political party.
Today’s most powerful political figure is the new President of the United States, the oldest surviving free-market republic.
Donald Trump’s power, to be sure, will be relatively brief — in less than four years he will no longer hold his office. Nor is he a saintly, universally beloved figure like the Dalai Lama, Pope John Paul II, the Buddha, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Mahatma Gandhi.
He is, like almost everyone, a flawed person who has known bitter defeat.
Trump does not draw his power from using military intimidation — although his nation’s armed forces are, despite some recent decline, the most powerful on earth.
He draws his power from economic capacity and its use in the United States’ relationships with friends and foes, as well as his nation’s unique role as a global humanitarian resource and protector of democracy. The latter role arose after catastrophic world wars and other major violent conflicts that resulted in immense losses of human life, loss of emerging freedom, and threats to potential worldwide prosperity that might have, for the first time, abolished global hunger, disease, and poverty.
Trump draws his power from America’s unique position in the world, as would any U.S. president, but he employs this power as few, if any, others have before him. Any U.S. president has global power ex-officio, but this president goes far beyond that.
Trump’s influence was felt even before he took office, as friends and foes took immediate steps in anticipation of what he had promised to do.
In the bloody Russo-Ukrainian war, leaders on both sides quickly stepped back from uncompromising positions. The forces in the chronic conflicts in the Middle East also agreed to a temporary ceasefire when one previously had appeared impossible. Long-held hostages began to be released.
Conflicts between the U.S. and Mexico, Canada, and China suddenly have come to a head, and prospects for a diplomatic, albeit economically driven, resolution have suddenly appeared.
The invasion of undocumented or illegal immigrants has been abruptly halted, and those who came here through the “open border” over the past four years, especially those with criminal or terrorist backgrounds, have begun to be deported.
Already, Colombia and Venezuela, which initially refused to receive their deported citizens, have backed down after facing the threat of economic penalties. Panama, after a visit from Trump’s envoy, has agreed not to renew its contract with China to operate the Panama Canal. Mexico and other Central and South American nations have also shown a willingness to compromise and work with the new Trump administration.
A U.S. role in Greenland, a policy advocated by previous presidents, has been given much impetus and urgency by Trump. Initially ridiculed in the always hostile establishment media, the idea that the United States could buy this important territory is not without popular support among Greenlanders, and the island’s common sense strategic value for global security is increasingly recognized.
The U.S. president might be for now the most powerful world figure, but he is not alone in leading global change.
In Argentina since last year, President Javier Milei has been almost single-handedly leading a libertarian democratic revolution that is rescuing the second-largest nation in South America from almost a century of erratic extremist Peronism, which has drained this once prosperous country of its many resources. Using libertarian and conservative economic policies, the historically unstable and wildly inflationary Argentine economy is rapidly correcting itself.
Like Simon Bolivar two centuries before, Milei’s leadership could impact the whole continent, which has rarely escaped being in the thrall of oligarchic figures who have exploited resources and often curtailed political freedom.
Before the recent hostilities broke out in the Middle East in October 2023, then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had helped Israel to transform itself from a tiny socialist economy into a free market technological powerhouse that invented and produced high-tech products and services sold and sought worldwide.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been in office since 2022 and was the first woman to lead her country. Politico ranked her as the most powerful leader in Europe in 2025. A conservative populist, she has brought a rare stability to historically fragile Italian politics. She has identified with the contemporary global trend of conservative and nationalist governments.
Waiting in the wings in Canada, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is heavily favored to become his nation’s future prime minister now that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has resigned. A Canadian nationalist, Mr. Poilievre could be the next significant new conservative populist figure to appear on the global stage.
Other contemporary conservative national leaders have emerged in Hungary, The Netherlands, Austria, France, Australia, Great Britain, and in many other countries. Each of these individuals has been especially controversial in the media, which is chronically hostile to any conservatives.
But no one commands the global stage as does the former and now new President of the United States. Donald Trump will only have this power for a limited time, but while he does, it will likely be quite a show.
Herald Boas is a contributor for AMAC Newsline.
